Artificial Intelligence
Rapid advancements in AI today have the potential to change everything about everything. But will they? We’re exploring what will change, how, and whether we’re building digital gods or stochastic parrots.
Featured
What if you could start civilization over with AI?
Innovators in every industry and field should adopt the same mantra: If you could start fresh with AI, then what would you do?
Three founders look to the future at Freethink’s inaugural Great Progression event
The tech community came together for the launch of the Great Progression event series, curated by Peter Leyden and produced by Freethink.
Why AI today is more toddler than Terminator
In “Raising AI,” author De Kai argues that AIs are more like society’s children than machines under our control.
A tool, a rival, or a collaborator?
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How proof-of-human tech could save the internet
Sam Altman’s World Network uses iris-scanning Orbs to give people a way to prove that they are people — and not AIs — online.
The AI social network war has begun
A secret prototype, a hardware deal with Jony Ive, and millions of AI images suggest OpenAI is making a play for your social media feed.
Are large language models dyslexic?
Despite outperforming humans at many tasks, multimodal LLMs struggle to read time on a clock — just like many people with dyslexia.
AI thinks “vegetative electron microscopy” is real — it’s not
The appearance of a nonsense term in multiple scientific papers has exposed how flawed data in training sets can become embedded in AIs.
Jony Ive has found his new Steve Jobs
Jony Ive and Sam Altman join forces as OpenAI acquires io, Ive’s secretive AI hardware startup, for $6.5 billion.
Why Substack will be the intellectual engine of the 21st century
The 21st-century version of the Royal Society could be the Substack network that we are just starting to build out today.
Vibe coding is rewriting the rules of technology
Rather than meticulously crafting each line of code, developers can now “vibe” with AI tools using natural language.
Cheap AI is causing a power shift in the world’s militaries
The militaries that leverage the low-cost capabilities of AI the most will have a decisive advantage in the future.
Media has a blind spot when covering the AI panic
When news outlets quote warnings of an impending AI catastrophe, they rarely mention the two main movements behind this narrative.
How AI could usher in The New Enlightenment
AI could trigger a civilization-scale change for humanity the same way the steam engine helped usher in The Enlightenment 250 years ago.
The missing tech case for how we create an era of abundance
AI and other new technologies could make things that are costly and scarce today, cheap and abundant for all tomorrow.
Why America reinvents itself every 80 years — and is doing so again
Three separate theories help explain why America enters a period of great progress every 80 years — and why another is coming soon.
How DeepSeek rewrote the rules of the AI race
Chinese startup DeepSeek has proven that vast quantities of capital and cutting-edge chips aren’t prerequisites for world-class AI.
Kevin Kelly points a new way forward into the Age of AI
One of the most original and optimistic thinkers in America helps build out some big through lines on what’s possible with AI in the next 25 years.
The artifact isn’t the art: Rethinking creativity in the age of AI
ChatGPT’s Studio Ghibli imitations invite questions about the creative value of people and what we really mean when we talk about creativity.
The next era of psychedelics may be precision-designed states of consciousness
A look inside Mindstate Design Labs’ effort to design drugs that reliably produce specific states of consciousness.
How technology has transformed private espionage
Combining AI and a deluge of open data has enabled some intelligence vendors to surpass the capabilities of government agencies.
Will LLMs lead to an artificial general intelligence?
An exclusive excerpt from AI podcaster Dwarkesh Patel’s first book, The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI 2019-2025.
A dozen reasons to read Peter Leyden at this critical juncture in history
To truly understand our historic moment, you need a comprehensive, big-picture, long-term perspective that deeply understands artificial intelligence and the next wave of transformative technologies.
What is The Great Progression: 2025 to 2050?
We have a historic opportunity to harness AI and other transformative technologies in order to make a much better world in the next 25 years.
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